Cody Irons
Cody Irons is a Greek demigod son of Ares, the God of War, but also a legacy of Hypnos since his mother was Hypnos's daughter. Biography Cody was born at an unknown date when Ares, the God of War, sired a child with a Nebraskan soldier named Miriam Irons, a daughter of Hypnos. Cody remarks that his life was extremely difficult because his mother was dishonourably discharged after leading a group of soldiers into a trap in Afghanistan, in which all but her were killed - she received violent attacks and threats on a weekly, sometimes hourly basis. One day, his mother was killed when the brother of one of the deceased men she led threw a brick through a window and it shattered her skull. Traumatised, Cody ran away from home, living a nomadic lifestyle until he was twelve years old. He remarks that he had to fight a series of monsters by that time, including a time he wiped out a family of invading Telkhines all on his own. This accomplishment drew the attention of the Gods for the first time, as Cody had lived out his entire life unclaimed by Ares. Cody eventually accidentally entered the Labyrinth, where he spent several weeks wandering, terrified by the horrors it provoked in his mind. At one point, he trespassed on one of Morpheus's self-made shrines. There, Morpheus, to spite Ares, tormented Cody with terrifying nightmares for several weeks, leaving him in a permanent dream-like state where he was relentlessly hounded by visions that led him to even try to kill himself in his sleep, which Morpheus prevented. Eventually driven out of control by the unspeakable agony, Cody overwhelmed Morpheus's control over him and escaped, his rage accidentally triggering an explosion which destroyed the shrine. He spent the next year wandering the Labyrinth until he reached an entrance into the Labyrinth at Camp Half-Blood where, dazzled by the first sight of sunlight in ages, he collapsed. He was nursed back into health by Chiron, and finally he was claimed by Ares. He spent three years training intensely at the Camp, becoming second only to Luke Castellan as the best swordsman there. However, he failed to feel at all at home there, permanently marred by his harrowing experience in the Labyrinth. He was, though, approached in his dreams by a hooded figure, whom he first suspected to be Morpheus reborn, but introduced himself as Kronos. The Titan Lord feigned sympathy for the son of Ares, and offered to bring him peace if he sought him out. Cody left Camp, but in order to do so he had to re-enter the Labyrinth. There, he wandered for several weeks before arriving at an Amazon camp. The Amazons took him prisoner, but Cody challenged the leader to a duel. Armed only with a rusty sword, Cody defeated the Amazon leader, and in exchange he demanded his freedom. The Amazons, vengefully, attacked him and he fought most of them off. Re-entering the Labyrinth, he arrived at the forge of Hephaestus, who expressed that he was impressed with Cody's battle prowess and awarded him with a single wish - the wish for a weapon appropriately powerful for someone of his accomplishments. Cody was awarded with a powerful sword, which he named Wolf's Bite (His only intended honour for his 'neglectful' father). Hephaestus also gifted him with a morningstar which he named Wolf's Cry. Wielding the sword, Cody fought his way to Mount Othrys, where he was contacted telepathically by Kronos, who violently entered his mind and brainwashed him into thinking that Kronos was his master, and that Cody was his servant. Cody started gathering unclaimed demigods on the streets for Kronos's army, who were inspired by his immense power of persuasion and charisma and compelled by his story, which depicted Kronos as the only source of compassion that Cody received. Cody would eventually be a leader in the Second Titan War as Kronos's pawn in the bid for Olympus's destruction. Second Olympian War Under the control of the Lord of Time, it is speculated that Cody was considered to be extremely valuable to the Titan Army because of his extreme power for a son of Ares, and the fact that he was vastly determined and with a force of will that impressed Kronos. More importantly, much like Luke Castellan - Cody's superior commander and fellow in hatred of the Gods - his intense hatred of the Olympian Gods would prove crucial to their cause because it made him brutally loyal to any cause that would contradict them. He was used first as a recruiter for other demigods, especially the unclaimed ones. He always embarked on these missions independently and it is remarked that the demigods who refused, he would kill in an honourable duel. As a result, Cody was derisively referred to as the Prince of Traitors' by Kronos's army. However, Cody embraced this title because he believed that treachery to the Olympians was not treachery but devotion. His identity, though, was hidden from Camp Half-Blood, who knew nothing at all about the number of demigods he had killed. With this in mind, Kronos sent him to a series of establishments where demigods took sanctuary - powerful demigods, apparently, who would undoubtedly never sway from loyalty to the Olympians - and Cody singlehandedly killed them all. When he wasn't sent as the mercenary and recruiting officer for the Titan Army, Cody continued to train with Luke on the ''Princess Andromeda after Luke defected officially from Camp Half-Blood. Luke was impressed with his combat prowess, and the son of Ares even managed to hold Luke at the point of a sword three times, but Cody admits that two of those times he cheated. Cody later met with Rex Tawny, a son of Athena, which Kronos orchestrated in order to try and recruit the demigod. Prometheus predicted that Rex would be pivotal to a major victory by the Titan cause, which prompted Kronos further to try and recruit the son of Athena. Cody befriended Rex and feigned being a brother figure to him at Camp Half-Blood. Cody later confessed that it was nearly as bad as the Labyrinth to be back at Camp. However, Chiron became suspicious of Cody's allegiance, sensing a rift of darkness in the boy's mind - this was the boy's intense willpower hiding the memories of the demigods he'd killed from Chiron and Dionysus. Luke wanted to see if Cody's loyalty was true and thus saw an opportunity when he poisoned Thalia's tree, and monsters started attacking Camp. Cody fought viciously, cunningly allowing Camp to be damaged and demigods to be killed or disabled whilst making it appear that his loyalty was true to his fellow Campers. He even saved Rex from an attacking Manticore. However, Rex discovered Cody's treachery when he caught him sending an Iris-Message to Luke, detailing the attack of the Manticore. Cody dropped a Greek fire bomb behind him, disorienting Rex enough for Cody to make a run for it. Rex alerted the Camp, who spread out across Half-Blood Hill hunting for Cody. Rex individually hunted after Cody, facing him deep in the woods. Unable to see him properly in the dark, Rex argued with Cody on betraying the Camp, but Cody speculated that he hadn't betrayed a cause he had no loyalty to. Rex drew his sword and tried to fight Cody, but Cody snuck up on him and attacked from behind. Rex blocked the blow and they locked eyes, Rex noting that there was an insane glint in the son of Ares' eyes. Seconds into the bladelock, Cody brandished his morningstar and smashed his opponent's shoulder, subduing him. Cody then moved to impale Rex through the back, but he was interrupted when an Apollo Cabiner launched a volley of flaming arrows at him. Deflecting the arrows with Wolf's Cry, Cody retreated into the woods and escaped. When he returned to the Princess Andromeda, Luke chastised him or leaving Rex alive when he could have killed him - he criticized that Cody may not have the ruthlessness to carry out his tasks. Kronos speculated that it was simply a show of brutality on Cody's part and he should carry out a mission that he would take more seriously: he sent Cody to attack Ares' Temple, where a large group of demigods were hiding and turning into a sanctuary. Cody smiled at this suggestion, but in fact the only thing he felt was pent-up fury at having to even approach something that so firmly acclaimed his father. He led a group of Scythian Dracaena and Telekhines to attack the Temple, where they fought through the skeletons that Ares had sent to defend it. Cody countered this attempt by summoning skeletons of his own and proceeding into the centre of the Temple, where the demigods were hiding. There, Cody delivered a rousing speech that persuaded a great deal of the demigods to follow him. However, his speech was interrupted when a white-cloaked man wielding a sword appeared and tried to persuade Cody to leave Kronos and to redeem himself. Cody sensed this to be another trick from Kronos and attacked the man, and the two of them briefly duelled until Cody stabbed the man in the heart. To Cody's shock, the man looked up from the stab wound and whispered to him in the voice which, unknown to him, belonged to Ares - he told him that every father sins at some point. Cody was shocked by this experience and, when one of the demigods asked him who that man was, Cody cut him down. When he led the new recruits out of the Temple, Cody looked back and spied who was revealed to be Ares standing in the doorway of the Temple, looking at him. Cody blinked, and the man was gone. Personality Cody was initially extremely unstable to begin with. His early life was excruciatingly intense because his house was almost routinely under attack from press crews, as well as attacks from the locals, on account of his mother leading a squad of soldiers to brutal deaths in Afghanistan. When his mother was finally killed, he suffered from possible post-traumatic stress disorder, resulting in a violent and temperamental streak stemming in his mind. His mind was further twisted by his harrowing experience in the Labyrinth, including being tormented by Morpheus, his unstable mind was warped to a dangerous degree. The worst aspect of his personality was the fact that he was unable to comprehend that his father hadn't paid him any attention in his entire life. He was incapable of fathoming that he had endured everything that he had done, and Ares had allegedly not taken any attention of him at all. This led to him having an intensely skewed view of how the world worked - he could empty Tartarus of its prisoners and then rip them to pieces, sacrificing their entrails to the Gods, but they wouldn't notice, or even care. This led to him having an immense hatred of the Olympians, which provoked him into an alliance with Kronos. Like all children of Ares, Cody had a habit of resorting to violence too quickly and developing impractically convenient and basic reasons for such things to happen. He was described to have a violent and unpredictable temper that made him frightening to the wrong person. His violence derived from him believing that, if he became a better warrior, he would attract Ares's attention at long, long last. Whilst this did make him a fierce and renowned warrior, it also made him aggressive and extremely bitter that Ares, the God of War who apparently adored brutality, didn't seem to turn a hair to the terrible things he started doing. This resulted in him doing increasingly vicious things simply to try and get the attention of his Olympian father, including wiping out a fledgling Amazon clan and even directly butchering demigods in the Battle of the Labyrinth. The interesting thing was that Cody understood entirely that the things he was doing were terrible and possibly unforgivable, but he felt that once Ares had patted him on the back for his alleged bloodthirst it would be entirely justified. However, despite his violent and brutal nature, he was not entirely unintelligent or weak-minded. He possessed an immense force of will which he developed firmly during his time in the Labyrinth. The reason that Cody became a pawn of Kronos was not out of malice, but because he genuinely believed that the easiest way, by far, for him to attract the attention of the God of War was if he was fighting against the Olympians in such a war. Kronos used this to exploit and manipulate Cody, convincing him further that Ares did not care about him and that Cody could only attract his attention once 'he had Wolf's Bite chewing into the spine of the War God'. Despite serving Kronos, Cody was terrified of the Titan Lord, especially when he speculated that if he disobeyed Kronos, Kronos would show him recollections of his mother's death, only more intense and more frightening. Appearance Cody is noted, like all children of Ares, to be rather powerfully built - strong, but lithe like a king cobra. He has shaggy coyote-brown hair and eyes that were originally said to have been mud-brown, but after his ordeal at the hands of Morpheus they became an intense silver, like polished platinum. He is explained to have a constant look of suspicion and insane caution, which is stemmed from being on his own and under attack all his life. He wears a grey leather duster over a black T-shirt and blue trousers. He also tends to wear black-grey sneakers. Cody keeps Wolf's bite in a scabbard strapped diagonally across his back (From the right hip to the left shoulder). He is left-handed. Abilities * ADHD: Like all demigods, Cody's supernatural alertness and keen senses that keep him ready for, and alive, in battle. It also lets him analyse his opponents fighting style as well as pick up minor details about an opponent, such as where their muscles tense so he can tell which direction they'll attack from. This is one general trait of demigods. * Dyslexia: His brain is "hard-wired" for reading divine Ancient Greek instead of mortal languages. This, along with ADHD, is a trait common to most demigods. * Swordsmanship: After years of training and experience fighting monsters, Cody has become a master swordsman and an expert of blade-to-blade combat. He trained intensely at Camp Half-Blood, focusing completely on combat and even defeated the Amazons singlehandedly with only a rusted sword. After receiving a proper sword as a gift from Hephaestus, Cody showed the full breadth of his talents with a sword. He was able to carve through armies of opponents, as he did during the Battle of the Labyrinth, without sustaining any injuries. Also, he defeated a series of advanced and enchanted combat robots which were gifted with every single form and style of fighting in history. His style was largely based on unpredictability, agility, and pressuring his opponent by cornering or agitating him. He also fought with both a sword and a mace, making him a frightening opponent, but despite speculation that he would be bad at defensive combat due to only having offensive weapons, he is able to phase perfectly between offence and defence. * Odikinesis: Like all children of Ares, and Ares himself, Cody exudes a prominent and powerful aura of violence and anger. He is able to maintain some control over this. Because of the terrible things he has been through and the terrible things he has done himself, his aura is far fiercer than most children of Ares, and even people as serene as the Hunters of Artemis nearly warred amongst themselves when they tried to ambush him. * Peak human condition: Cody is in the pinnacle of the human physical condition in terms of strength, endurance, stamina, flexibility, agility and coordination. As such, he did not tire easily at all in combat and survived the Battle of the Labyrinth not only unscathed but also without becoming exhausted, and Rex reasoned that he couldn't tire the son of Ares out in order to win. * Hypnokinesis: As a legacy of Hypnos, Cody inherited a considerable level of talent with navigating 'the dark dreamscape'. He has sharpened this power significantly under Kronos's guidance and, thus, can use it to hypnokinetically invade and read the minds of others, albeit with a certain amount of effort which drains him over time. He can also astral project himself into other people's dreams, at which point he appears with '''a sliver of silver light outlining his body, and is even able to physically attack people in their dreams. He has shown to be able to put people to sleep through physical contact, but he can personally activate this power so it doesn't go off by accident, and to an extent he can protect himself from telepathic attacks. * Willpower: Cody's most advantageous and by far most impressive attribute is his immense willpower, which doesn't appear to know any boundaries. He survived being tormented mentally by Morpheus himself for several weeks. He was eventually able to telepathically overwhelm Morpheus at his own game and even mentally turn the God's power on himself, causing a powerful explosion that destroyed the shrine. Kronos himself remarked that the boy was incredibly difficult, almost impossible, to penetrate. Rex himself confessed that the boy's willpower and indomitable impenetrability made him look like either his mind was armoured impenetrably by Celestial Bronze, or he had already snapped - either way, his force of will was terrifying. * Telumkinesis: Cody, like all children of Ares, is immediately masterful with any conventional weapon that he wields, including spears, firearms, swords and knives. He also unconsciously knows everything about a weapon once he holds it, and knows all of the ways in which to wield it. * Necromancy: Cody has some proficiency with Necromancy, and is able to summon a number of skeleton soldiers and command them. However, his ability to do this is far inferior to that of a child of Hades. * Strategy: Cody is a master strategist, as evidenced by him being trusted by Kronos to lead his contingency against Camp Half-Blood as far as strategy is concerned. Weapons * Wolf's Bite: Wolf's Bite is his personal weapon, a powerful sword which is enchanted to be indestructible. The sword can also be augmented significantly by the rage and anger of whomever wields it. Cody named it Wolf's Bite as the wolf is one of Ares' symbols. * Wolf's Cry: Wolf's Cry is his secondary personal weapon, a morningstar made of celestial bronze which is connected by a retractable two-foot chain. Wolf's Bark comes out of a black metal fingerless gauntlet. Category:Greek Demigods Category:Children of Ares Category:Camp Half-Blood campers Category:Males Category:Main Protagonists Category:Hero turned villain Category:Antagonist